Heterodoxy, positivism and economism. On the futility of ...3 Cf. on the criticism of the concept of...

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Heterodoxy, positivism and economism. On the futility of overcoming neoliberalism on positive grounds Ulrich Thielemann* [Berlin, Germany]

Copyright: Ulrich Thielemann, 2020

You may post comments on this paper at https://rwer.wordpress.com/comments-on-rwer-issue-no-94/

Abstract

Though with a delay of almost one decade, the prevalence of the unitary paradigm of neoliberal-neoclassical economics, which just seemed to have been called into question after the great financial crisis of 2007, is challenged today more severe and from diverse sites. The number of heterodox voices and dissenters is rising. However, there is a mainstream of this heterodoxy, and this heterodox mainstream considers itself as the truly positive economics, operating, at long last, “free of ideology” (Stiglitz, Peukert, Rochon/Rossi), i.e., value free and “neutral”, striving to overcome the unitary paradigm and its ideology by an “empirical turn” (Naidu/Rodrik/Zucman). The overall thrust of orthodox economics, obfuscated by declarations of its own value-freedom, is and has ever been to render the market principle as the true principle of practical (ethical) reason, i.e., of rightness as such, which is the meaning of economism. This is the prerequisite of the orthodox desire to offer an ethical justification for the economization of the world and our lives in all respects. Any deviation is called “irrational”. A merely empirical oriented heterodoxy, if it is to be called heterodox economics at all, is not capable of refuting this normative validity claim, and, thus, overcoming orthodox economics – though the strong impression is that it wants just that. In spotting its sole difference to orthodoxy in empirical matters, positivist heterodoxy, at best, comes down to the paradigm of market failure, which is ambiguous in its political implications and which, when construed with the highest degree of inner consistency, results in continuing and even strengthening the project of economizing all life matters. Also, a positivistically constricted heterodoxy fails to recognize that any purely positively oriented social science is in fact a variant of economism, be it in the form of a general instrumental science, transforming science into a business, or in the form of the paradigm of counterproductivity, demonstrating “empirically” that the refusal to market obedience is always in vain and detrimental to those who try. For overcoming economism and market fundamentalism, an ethical turn is needed.

Contents

1. The status of normativity and its dependence on categorically different cognitive interests 150

1.1 Positive economics 152

1.2 Market affirmative economics 153

1.3 Market critical economics 154

2. Heterodox economics as the true positivism? ............................................................................. 154

3. Neoclassical economics as market ideology ............................................................................... 158

3.1 The defense of homo economicus violates the moral principle 159

3.2 The concealment of the losers in the process of “creative destruction” 161

3.3 The loss of freedom through the evolvement of “free” markets 163

* PD Dr. Ulrich Thielemann, MeM – Denkfabrik für Wirtschaftsethik, Berlin, Elaboration of the lecture “Heterodoxe Ökonomik jenseits von Ideologie und ethisch-normativer Ideologiekritik? Das ethisch-kritische Paradigma von Ökonomik” held on March 2, 2019, in the context of the conference in honor of Karl-Heinz Brodbeck with the title “Wissen und Nichtwissen der ökonomisierten Gesellschaft. Aufgaben der Politischen Ökonomie im 21. Jahrhundert”, Cusanus University, Bernkastel-Kues, Germany. The German version of the text will be published in Ötsch, Walter Otto, Steffestun, Theresia (Hg.): Wissen und Nichtwissen der ökonomisierten Gesellschaft. Beiträge zu einer neuen Politischen Ökonomie, Metropolis Marburg 2020 (Band 13 in der Reihe “Kritische Studien zu Markt und Gesellschaft”).

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3.4 Forgoing ideology criticism 165

4. The paradigm of market failure ...................................................................................................... 166

5. The paradigm of counterproductivity ............................................................................................ 170

5.1 Positivist economics as a theory of success 171

5.2 Positivist economics as proclaimer of the “brutal truths” of the rule of the market 172

5.3 Heterodox positivism and the good news of a well-functioning true market 175

6. The ethico-critical paradigm of economics .................................................................................. 177

References 178

1. The Status of normativity and its dependence on categorically different cognitive

interests

Within the social sciences (economics included), there is a great deal of misunderstanding

about the status of normativity in addressing the social world (which of course includes “the

economy”). This can be illustrated by the predominant understanding of business ethics which

is, if the idea of an explicit link between “economy” and “ethics” is not rejected from the

outset,1 routinely understood as an “applied ethics”.

2 In this view, “ethics” does not stand for

rightness as such, not for the correct, ethically appropriate interpretation and assessment of

the economy as a part of the social world, but for a special set of norms that originates from

tradition and for which professional “ethicists” are responsible today. This shrinking form of

business or economic ethics (as the ethics of economics), understood as an “applied ethics”,

seeks to show how and whether “de-contextualized” (Habermas 1991, p. 24) norms founded

in general ethics, or “preferences” somehow classified as “moral”, can be “applied” to the

economy.3 Economic ethics then becomes a “reflection on the possibilities and limits of

normative regulation of the actions of economic actors” (Heidbrink/Lorch/Rauen 2019, 125).4

The logical consequence of such an ethics “under the conditions of the modern economy”

(Homann/Blome-Drees 1992, p. 14) is that the existing market power relations are

acknowledged (and thus generally legitimized) in their dynamics by hypostasizing them as a

quasi-natural “fact”.

And then it can either turn out that the norms in question are “applicable” or “realizable”

“under the conditions” of competitive markets’ reign, or that they are not. In the first case we

are dealing with the “Business Case for Ethics”, or with an ethics of “win-win”, which

dominates practically the entire discussion under the heading of “business ethics” and also

large parts of the political discussion, with regard to the former at least until recently.5 The

advocates of this thinking call out to us: acting responsibly is “possible” also in the business

world, it is even necessary in order to be truly, and not putatively, acting myopically,

1 In 1991, the faculty (obviously of the Department of Economics) at the London School of Economics

saw “no correlation between ethics and economics” and rejected a donation for a Chair in Business Ethics. Mofid 2015. 2 Cf. Aßländer 2011, Aßländer/Schumann 2011, Göbel 2006, 75, Holzmann 2015, Reichert 2013.

3 Cf. on the criticism of the concept of “applied ethics” Ulrich 2016, 103ff., Thielemann 2000, 2001.

4 All translations of German texts in the following are by the author.

5 Criticism of the win-win ethics of the business case, i.e. the assertion that it pays off to do what is

ethically right or required, usually with the add-on: “in the long-term”, is recently rising. Cf. on the mostly empirical (instead of validity-logical) criticism Kuhn/Weibler 2011, Reyes/Scholz/Smith 2017, Shapira/Zingales 2017, Boda/Zsolnai 2016, Pennekamp 2019.

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successful.6 In the second case, the “illusion” (Karl Homann) of any attempt to moralize or, in

the sense of Polanyi, to embed markets becomes apparent. This “discovery” (Hayek 1982,

65ff.), however, ultimately only confirms the higher morality, or the “superindividual wisdom”

(Hayek 1960, 110), of the market principle. This thinking finds its most widespread expression

in the assertion not only of the ineffectiveness, but even of the “counterproductivity” of “well-

meant” intentions when pursued “under the conditions” of the mundane rule of the market

principle.7

The alternative to such hypostasizing, uncritical thinking is an ethically grounded economic

theory. Ethics is about the rightness (justice, fairness) of human relationships. Such a novel

economic theory aims at the critical clarification of the relationships between people in the

interaction-nexus called the market from an ethically reflected point of view: In which

particular, possibly problematic way do the economic actors, the participants and the affected

parties of the competitive market, put themselves in relation, or are put in relation, and then:

by whom? Market relations are relations between people.8 And relationships of interaction,

relationships between “us humans”, must first and foremost be just – and not “efficient”.

Economics, or any academic endeavor to study “the economy”, it is argued here, inevitably

draw an affirmative or critical picture of the specific interaction relationship that a market

economy is. To draw a “neutral” picture, as self-proclaimed “positive” economics claims for

itself, would be an affirmative and thus a normative image, because it gives the message that

ethically everything is in order (Thielemann 2010, 67f., 2009, 98ff.). The inevitably normative

message of any economic theory is given to political addressees (students, politicians, the

general public), which at the same time also form its subject area.9 Therefore “economics is

ethics” (Brodbeck 2002a) – for better or for worse.10

Which term is chosen for such an

economic science that critically reflects its own inevitable normativity is of secondary

importance. Possible terms are Integrative Economic Ethics (Ulrich 2008), Ethical-Critical

Economics, Political Economy, or Social Economics.

In order to illuminate and classify the paradigmatic counter-positions sketched so far, the

“classical” theory of three types of fundamental cognitive interests and corresponding,

categorically different types of knowledge, developed by Jürgen Habermas (1971), is still

instructive. In the following, it will be presented in slight modification and without any

anthropological validity claim. What is the purpose of economic research? What is the type of

its validity claim? What kind of knowledge does it create? To these questions, which are

hardly ever asked, the theory of cognitive interests can provide answers and contribute

categorical classifications.

Habermas (1971, p. 308f.) assigns a “technical cognitive interest” to positive (not necessarily

nomological) social sciences.11

They understand their subject as an ensemble of causal

6 In fact and inwardly consistent, however, legitimacy here is defined by profitability, i.e., redefined in line

with the logic of the market. Cf. Thielemann/Wettstein 2008. This validity-logical argument is also found in Aßländer/Nutzinger 2010, 230. 7 Cf. section 5.

8 The understanding of economics as Social Economics is based on this actually trivial fact. Cf. for

example Elsner 2015, p. 235. 9 This is the core of the performativity argument. Cf. Callon 1998, MacKenzie, et al. 2007,

Ötsch/Pühringer/Hirte 2018, 19ff., Ferraro/Pfeffer/Sutton 2005. 10

The similarities and differences between the approach of Karl-Heinz Brodbeck and the ethical-integrated approach (Integrative Economic Ethics) are expounded in Thielemann 2019. 11

The natural sciences are disregarded here. Basically, their cognitive interest must be a technical one.



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relations which are “the case” (Wittgenstein) and ask for the truth of statements about them.12

The “practical” as well as the “emancipatory cognitive interest”, on the other hand, understand

their subject area as a context of meaning, or as a life-world, and inquire after the correctness

of the circulating interpretations of the social world, and in the end they are concerned with

the question whether the present courses of action are right or wrong, legitimate or

illegitimate. The “practical cognitive interest”, as it is understood here, aims essentially at

legitimizing the existing social order, including the dynamics of change incorporated in that

order. The “emancipatory cognitive interest”, as it is understood here, aims at critically

questioning the legitimacy of the existing social order and its inherent dynamics. Both

normative (instead of “positive”) research orientations do not exclude the possibility that the

object of investigation is at least partially determined by causal relationships that are not

embedded in contexts of meaning, i.e., that they are systemically structured.13

1.1 Positive economics

Neoclassical standard economics declares itself as a “positive” science, conceptualizing the

economy as a given causal relationship or as an ensemble of “facts” (i.e. power relations).

The determination and conceptualization of these facts is deemed to be “value-free”. This

kind of theory aims at “explaining” the causal relationships between these facts. Classical

“neoclassical” representatives of this view are Lionel Robbins (1945) and Milton Friedman

(1953). The claim of value-freedom means that what positive economists say is deemed to be

beyond any moral doubt and their statements ethically unimpeachable. The claim can be

found in the textbooks of Mankiw (2008, 30ff.) or Samuelson and Nordhaus (2006, 6), also,

for example, in topical contributions on questions of income and wealth inequality (Fratzscher

2016, 71, 77ff). Levitt/Dubner (2006, 11) succinctly formulate this self-image in this way:

“Morality represents the way we would like the world to work, and economics

represents how it actually does work.”

However, as we have known since Max Weber (1949, 72, 80ff.), the description of the

“functioning” of a causal social structure presupposes “particular points of view” which are, of

course, normative and obviously have, as for instance in the notion of a “functioning market

economy”, the purpose of justifying the existing order (in its dynamics). However, this would

mark the “practical cognitive interest”.

This does not mean that a positive social science, and thus positive economics, merely

determining what is objectively the case (and thus true), were not possible. However, there is

a practical (normative) sense of such a quest of knowledge here too. It is the generation of

“instrumental knowledge [Verfügungswissen]” (Mittelstrass 1982, 19f., Apel 1979, 29, 234),

that is, the increase of “the technical control over objectified processes” (Habermas 1971,

309). For without knowledge of existing causal relationships, whether in the natural or in the

social world, without knowledge of the “constraints”, it is not possible to intervene successfully

in an existing causal nexus. Because homo oeconomicus already knows his preferences,

what is lacking alone are information about the objective, or objectified, world in order to know

which interests can be, and how these can be, enforced against resistance in order to

maximize his own privately defined utility. Homann/Suchanek (2005, 347) express the internal

12

The three cognitive interests correspond to the three basic validity claims truth, rightness and sincerity, Habermas first set forth in his 1971 Gauss Lectures (Habermas 2001, 85ff.). 13

On this fundamental distinction between system and lifeworld, also based on Jürgen Habermas, see Thielemann 2019, 364 ff., and the literature cited there.



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connection between the positive identification of objectified causal relationships and the

instrumental will to dispose of them through the formula “explaining for the sake of making

[Erklärung zwecks Gestaltung]”. Therefore, the categorical separation, which can be found as

early as in John Neville Keynes (1917, 12f., 22) and in Walras (1896, 11ff.), between “positive

science” committed to “truth” on the one hand and “art” on the other, which is supposed to

generate “recipes”, i.e. to provide instrumental knowledge under the aspect of its

“usefulness”, does not make sense. Correspondingly, Walras (1896, 13) notes:

“It is the arts that make the truths that science has discovered useful, and

that, without the arts would remain sterile. It is also almost always the

principal motive of the work of science. Mankind rarely studies solely for the

pleasure of having knowledge; he has, in general, a goal of usefulness for his

work, and this goal can only be achieved by the arts.”

1.2 Market affirmative economics

Market affirmative economics is tacitly or declaredly normative. The tacit variant, which

imagines itself as a “positive and thus value-free” theory, can be understood as an “implicit

ethics” (Brodbeck 2003). The explicit variant can be found, for example, in the economic

theory of Karl Homann (1989, 48), which is explicitly represented under the title “economic

ethics”. Homann declares his approach as a “foundation of morality from interests” – which

means: as theory justifying the interest orientation, the rationality of success, or of homo

economicus as the pinnacle of the moral principle. The representatives of the Austrian

School, Ordoliberalism and Public Choice can also be classified here, insofar as they admit

the normativity of their own statements.14

Market affirmative economics, or economism, aims at enthroning the market principle, or the

principle of competition, in all aspects of life, thus arguing systematically towards the

progressive economization of our lives. A cognitive interest in the “preservation and

expansion” of a “self-understanding derived from tradition”, which Jürgen Habermas (1971, p.

310) characterized as “practical”, is only present here in so far as economistic views are

already widely established, which in times of the ubiquitous dominance of neoliberalism is

quite probable. It is also conceivable, however, that market affirmative economics could

establish itself as a critical, at least not affirmative science – namely, when economistic views

have not yet sufficiently established themselves in common believes or in the thinking of the

addressees of the theory (in fact, the elites), so that opposition can be expected from there.

This was the case, for example, for the particularly market affirmative Austrian strands of

economics in the 1920s, when the Historical School was still the mainstream within

economics (see Ötsch 2019, 101ff.). Even then, however, this doctrine served interests with

market power or financial strength (ibid., p. 104f.), which Weber (1968, 730) calls “parties

interested in power in the market” because their interest is that ultimately only market power

(financial power and the ability to obtain it) matters.15

As in the (pure) market only power rules

– the negative power of withdrawing benefits previously granted, i.e., choosing the exit-option

– in other words: as “markets run according the ‘one-dollar-one-vote’ rule” (Chang 2014, 393),

market-affirmative economics here is classified as falling into the second category of a

14

Cf. Willgerodt 2009. Willgerodt (1924-2012) was a member of the Mont Pèlerin Society and the Friedrich A. von Hayek Society. 15

The original German term is “Marktmachtinteressenten”, and a better translation would be: “people interested in market power”.



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cognitive interest, which Habermas calls “practical” (it might also be called “conservative”) and

which here is termed affirmative.

The “practical” (affirmative) cognitive interest aims at generating eo ipso normative

“orientation knowledge [Orientierungswissen]” (Mittelstrass) or “knowledge of understanding

[Verständigungswissen]” (Apel 1973, 68, 73), but with a counter-enlightening intention: it acts

as a supplier of ideology, legitimizing existing power structures and the dynamics resting in

them. Market affirmative economics is to be called an ideology because the advocacy of the

market principle to reign supreme firstly serves the “people interested in market power”

(Weber) and secondly because and in so far it is already pre-decided. Opposing views,

relativizing pro market arguments, are not taken seriously from the outset as they would cast

doubt on the bindingness (rationality) of the notion that the market principle should rule.

1.3 Market critical economics

Market-critical economics is concerned with the critical reflection of the notion that the market

principle should reign supreme, which includes the inclination to declare only market-based

arguments as relevant. It wants to sort out what is ethically at stake when the market logic

unfolds. The type of knowledge it provides is orientation knowledge, or more precisely:

“reflective knowledge” (Karl-Otto Apel). The cognitive interests of market-critical economics is

emancipatory. This emancipatory thrust is needed first, as economism is difficult to

comprehend and thus the examination of its (implicitly normative) validity claims is highly

demanding, second, as the unfolding of the logic of the market also creates pressures from

which it might be worth to emancipate ourselves.

2. Heterodox economics as the true positivism?

It took almost a decade that, after the great financial crisis that began in 2007, the dominance

of the neoliberal-neoclassical paradigm began to being increasingly questioned. The number

of heterodox voices is increasing. However, the mainstream, if one can say so, of this

heterodoxy sees itself as the truly positive economics. The neoclassical mainstream is

classified by Stiglitz (2002) – not a heterodox, but, after all, a dissenter – as an “ideology”, not

as a “science” (Stiglitz 2002). Also, Helge Peukert (2018a, 2018b), surely a heterodox

economist, places his critical review of current microeconomic and macroeconomic textbooks

under the guiding question: “Science or Ideology?”

“Ideology” here is understood positivistically as any kind of normative judgement, whether

affirmative or critical. From the standpoint of the positivist program, normative judgments or

“ideologies” have the detrimental effect of “obfuscating” the identification of “the facts”

(Rochon/Rossi 2016, 25). In contrast, “ideology” in the ethical-critical understanding is a

justification of existing power relations and corresponding interests, without this justification

claim being able to be ethically redeemed when subjected to critical scrutiny. Of course, there

is no “objective” concept of an ideology. In contrast to quite normal (also academic)

controversies about the judgement of the social world as well as structuring it in the case of

“problems” – that is what ethics is all about –, however, the claim to characterize a position as

“ideological”, and thus morally wrong, is compounded by the feature that the justification claim



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in question is obtained by means of unfair tricks – for instance by omitting conflicting facts,16

by concealment (Hedtke 2015, 24) or the distorted presentation of counter-positions and thus

by the lack of willingness to controversy, and in particular by obscuring one’s normativity

through the declaration of one’s own position as “value-free”, and thus through immunization

against criticism.

Steve Keen (2011, 35, 158) also sees in the neoclassical mainstream not a “science” but a

“religion” that draws a “mythical” picture of “reality”. If economics wants to become a “true

science”, it must be measured by the “accuracy of its predictions”, i.e. it must correspond to

the ideal that was “first demanded by Milton Friedman”. If economics wants to become “a

rigorous discipline”, heterodox economist John Komlos (2019, 3) contends, its statements

must be “based essentially on verifiable empirical evidence”. Economics as a “critical pluralist”

endeavor should strive solely for “judgments about what is true”, i.e. “which of the contesting

ideas explains the observable facts best” (Freemann 2009, 9f.). Arne Heise (2016), a German

heterodox economist, argues that the only criterion for excluding an economic position as

unscientific is the “applied positivist fallibilism”, i.e. the “empirical falsification” of its

statements, which can therefore only be hypotheses about cause-effect relationships. Those,

who demand “ethical reflection” by the discipline, demand “interdisciplinarity”, not “plurality”.17

Heise must assume that economics, as an academic discipline, must be regarded as value-

free. In the words of Friedman (1953, 4): The validity claims of genuine economists are

“independent of any particular ethical position or normative judgment”. Also, economics, as

such, needs to be kept free of normative reflections. At best, these would have their place in

an external discipline like business ethics or economic ethics, albeit it would remain unclear

how these would relate to each other. What is only clear is that, from a positivist standpoint,

ethical reflections should not affect the specific economic validity claim. Also, heterodox

economist Helge Peukert (2018a, 52f.) assigns “normative approaches”, which may operate

under the header “economic ethics”, to the “neighboring disciplines” of economics. Strictly

speaking, these would be just supporting disciplines, because they have the purpose of

increasing the explanatory power of economics in its quest for capturing “causal laws”.

The “ultimate motivation” for Helge Peukert's (2018a, 13) critical examination of the

neoclassical mainstream is an “economic ethical concern”. This possibly applies to many, if

not to most of the heterodox critics.18

This makes sense. For if neoclassical orthodoxy is

ideology (in the non-positivist sense), then there is no way to refute its validity claims without

ethical reflections. But on the contrary, Peukert does not attribute normativity (critical or

affirmative) to the theory itself, but to its “pre-analytical” or “pre-scientific assumptions about

the subject area” (pp. 17, 63). Normativity is “external to theory” (p. 48f.). Contrary to their

“scientific” claim to limit themselves to “factual statements”, the neoclassical mainstream

textbooks were “ideologically colored” in an “unexpected” way (p. 315, 324). Namely, they

were pervaded by “market-apologetic” (p. 112) or “market-affine viewpoints” (p. 8) and thus

afflicted with normative judgments that were to be located “beyond academia and beyond

neoclassical theory” (p. 315). In many cases “neoliberal-conservative conclusions” were to be

16

This is the moment of “untruth” in Hans Albert's definition of ideology as “usefulness” for stabilizing existing power relations. Cf. Albert 1972, 125f. 17

According to Heise, ethical-critical approaches that expressly do not declare themselves to be “value-free”, for example in the sense of a truly Political Economy or a Practical Social Economy, a priori are not among the possible paradigms which in the course of the pluralistic renewal of economics, for which Heise pleads, should be included in the circle of approaches to be discussed and contested. 18

Heise/Sander/Thieme (2017, 77) also attest “almost all heterodox theory schools” a, as they call it, “market-critical heuristic” – as if this were an odd coincidence. (“Almost”, because the Austrian School of Economics and Ordoliberalism are also considered heterodox schools of thought.)



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found “that go far beyond microeconomic questions” (p. 324). These were “private opinions”

which were “unobjectively” (since scientificity is merely pretented) “foisted” to the students (p.

171).

Thus, positivist heterodoxy believes that the principled market affirmation of neoclassical

economics – and by the way also already, albeit with some concessions, of classical

economics19

– is a “theory-external” (Peukert) accident, but mainstream economics in its core,

cleaned of these impurities, is a “positive” theory “independent of normative judgements”

(Friedman). In contrast to the view I argue that the validity claim of the orthodox, i.e.

neoclassical economics itself (with some qualifications already of the classical economics),

i.e. what Albert (1980, 63 ff.) calls their “context of statements [Aussagenzusammenhang]”, is

in fact normative and always has been: The market principle should rule. The only

controversial point is what exactly are the characteristics of the market principle and what are

the preservation conditions of the market logic to rule.20

For the general theory of equilibrium

(textbook economics), the model-formalistic proof of the existence of a “market-clearing” and

“stable” equilibrium, which is seen as the central feature of the market regime, is tantamount

to the “proof of the optimality of a market economy" (Elsner 2015, 237) and considered as the

prerequisite “for the belief in ‘the market’” (Ötsch 2019, 397), i.e. for the justifiability of the

market principle to rule the world.21

For the Austrian school of economics, which is more in

the Menger rather than Walrasian line of neo-classical economics, the central characteristic of

the, therefore dynamic, evolvement of the market logic it is not the existence of equilibria but

the “entrepreneurial discovery” (or creation) of disequilibria, which is brought to bear in the

“defense of the market” (Huerta de Soto 2008, 31) as the “the obvious and simple system of

natural liberty” (A. Smith), which moreover maximizes “the total product” (Hayek 1979, 14).22

In both cases, we are thus dealing with a “practical cognitive interest” (in the above sense),

and thus with a normative claim to validity. There are systematic or “logical” (Myrdal 1958, 1)

reasons for this, which can be developed in a meaning-critical way.

Economists, like other social scientists, want to show something. They have something

meaningful to say about their subject area, affirm the existing logics of action or possibly

critically examine them. In short, they want to generate orientation knowledge. Robert

Heilbroner (1973, 139) also sees it this way:

“I would venture the statement that every social scientist approaches his task

with a wish, conscious or unconscious, to demonstrate the workability or

19

Cf. on the “classical dogma”, the normative core of which was continued and enhanced in the neoclassical period, Brodbeck 1996, 6ff, 325. The essential difference between classical and neoclassical economics may be seen in the fact that the former strives for an external and insofar critical criterion of evaluation for us (the addressees of the theory) for empirically existing markets (especially with regard to the question whether the income of the market participants represents value creation or value extraction), whereas the latter, on the other hand, wants to establish the market conformity of interaction relations itself as the principle of evaluation for us (so that, for example, that which achieves a price should be considered “value-creating” for us). On this reversal of the view, see Mazzucato 2018, 7, 65f., 140f. 20

Wolfram Elsner (2015, 233), for example, sees in the “orthodoxy” of the “dominant (neoclassical) mainstream ... the ideology producer of the capitalist economic society par excellence”. 21

Cf. on the technical – and crashing – failure of this attempt of mathematical equilibrium theory according to its own standards Ötsch 2019, especially p. 369ff., and the extensive literature mentioned there; moreover, briefly and concisely Elsner 2015, 236f. The perseverance of this specific attempt to justify the market principle to reign supreme can probably be explained by the prestige enjoyed by the mathematical form with which this theory is proclaimed. It signals “scientificity” (cf. Ötsch 2019, 172). 22

For Hayek, this utilitarian maximization of overall utility is not a social goal, but is said to result from the desired rule of the principle of competition. Cf. Thielemann 2010, 296 ff.



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unworkability [rightness or wrongness, author’s note] of the social order he is

investigating.”

By its very intention, economic theory is in fact normative and not “value-free”.

“In the economic thinking and acting normativity has always been resting.”

(Ulrich 2004, 134)

This, however, is of no concern to positivists. That there cannot be, for the reasons

mentioned, an “disinterested social science” (Myrdal 1958, 1) is admitted, but the “value

premises” (Myrdal) are assigned to the “basic area” (Albert 1980, 63ff.); they are just “value

premises” of the positive, value-free “explanation” of factually existing causal relations,

whereby the sole aim is to minimize the influence of those “distortions” on them. This is how

Peukert (2018a, 17) seems to interpret the Myrdal passage so that normativity is still to be

located outside the actual theory, whose validity in itself can and should remain independent

of those normative “value premises”. Whether this interpretation meets Myrdal's (1958, 1f.)

actually sometimes ambivalent position, however, is questionable, especially in view of his

thesis of the “value-loadedness” of the “very concepts” with which we first bring the object to

our and the reader’s consciousness as something, as this, not as that.23

The positivist

externalization of the question of conceptualizing the subject matter is not only shown by the

fact that one routinely sees a contradiction between “descriptions” and “prescription” (cf.

critically Söderbaum 2019, 183), but also by the fact that one downgrades it to a question of

“framing” (Peukert 2018a, 316 and the literature cited there), so that the sense (or nonsense)

transported by the theory becomes a question merely of how the actual theory, which is

regarded essentially as value-free, is “framed” (presented). In the preface to the English

Edition of his 1932 book “Das politische Element in der nationalökonomischen

Doktrinbildung”, Myrdal (1953, vii) repudiated his former view “that when all metaphysical

[normative] elements are radically cut away, a healthy body of positive economic theory will

remain, which is altogether independent of valuations.” Such an “implicit belief in the

existence of a body of scientific knowledge acquired independently of all valuations” he now

rejected as “naïve empiricism”.

The first objection to the positivist illusion of a value-free, ethically neutral social theory, no

matter whether it considers itself orthodox or heterodox, thus refers to the merely apparent

positivist nature of an unacknowledged normative theory, aiming at the justification or possibly

also at the rejection of prevailing circumstances and views. The second objection to positivist

heterodoxy (or even positivist orthodoxy, although it is questionable what the systematic

difference between the two is) is less significant, but systematically more serious. It is less

significant because the case that a social theory (about economic activities on markets) is

developed without the advocate of this theory subjectively raising a normative validity claim

(showing that what is going on, in whatever respect, is right or wrong; or that circulating views

on the current state of economic affairs are right or wrong) is hypothetically conceivable, but

is hardly ever likely to be pursued. One would have to ask what should motivate this

researcher, what would be her cognitive interest. One possibility would be a moral obligation

to make “the truth” about the economy as a quasi-naked economic context accessible to the

addressees of the theory. And here too the question arises: Which causal relations and which

aspects of them are “relevant” or interesting and for whom? Somewhat more likely is the

second motivation of a purely positive theory, the direction of which, as we have seen, must

23

Cf. in detail Thielemann 2010, 104-130.



158

be a technical one: The theory would become a mutually advantageous business, the

addressees would become the customers of the theory, who would be provided with

instrumental knowledge. What is “relevant” is then shown by the addresses’ (as customers)

ability to pay. I have described this view elsewhere as a consultancy theory (Thielemann

2010, 83ff., 101, 105f.). The second objection is systematically more serious, because even

purely positive economics could not be regarded as value-free, as will be shown (see section

5).

In the following, the factual normativity of the neoliberal mainstream will be outlined briefly,

not on the grounds of an allegedly purely positive theory (positivist ideology critique), but with

an ideology-critical thrust that normatively rejects falsely claimed justifications (section 3). In

section 4, the peculiar hybrid position of the (dominant) positivist strand of heterodoxy, which

tacitly takes the normative standards of assessment of the mainstream for granted and

questions their empirical validity alone, is elaborated: the market failure paradigm. The

problematic normativity of a truly positivist economics reveals itself in the counter-productivity

paradigm (section 5).

3. Neoclassical economics as market ideology

The German economist Friedrich Breyer (2008, 129) characterizes “the economists” (which

apparently means all, at least all German-speaking professors) as “the most resolute

advocates of the market”. (The advocates of the market failure paradigm would disagree;

however, they hold hardly any professorships, at least in Germany. Moreover, in a certain

sense they too are “advocates of the market” (cf. section 4). – And, of course, those who see

this differently must not plead for “socialist planned economy” (Breyer 2008, 130), as this the

binary thinking of many advocates of the market principle insinuates.24

Rather, and quite

obviously, the focal point of their argumentation might be a Social Market Economy in the true

meaning, i.e. market interaction relations within which the market logic is socially and

ecologically tamed and which can therefore be regarded as “embedded” (Karl Polanyi). Cf.

Thielemann 2020.)

Even a good 10 years after the financial crisis, faith in the market continues to maintain its

position among the experts advising politicians and shaping public opinion on the economy.

This is shown by a statement of four of the five members of the German Council of Economic

Experts, in which they (against the criticized fifth in the group, Peter Bofinger) blithely

expressed their and all serious “economists’ love of the market” (Feld/u.a. 2017). (The

alternative would of course not be hatred, but a distanced, unprejudiced view.) Here it is

maintained that “trust in market processes” (Sachverständigenrat 2014) – apparently in

turning everything for the good – is not merely an external “worldview smuggled into theory”

(Peukert 2018a, 21). Rather, it forms the thrust of the entire neoclassical program (Austrian

economics included) and marks its validity claim and its message to its audience. Lawrence

Summers, Harvard Professor of Economics, Chief Economist of the World Bank, Secretary of

the Treasury under Bill Clinton, one of the architects of financial sector deregulation,

confessed in 1991:

24

Cf. to numerous proofs of this thinking from the circle of economists, which leaves us only the choice “between capitalism and the Gulag” (Bregman 2019), Ötsch (2019, 29ff., 65, 160f.).



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“The single most important thing to learn from an economics course today …

is the view that the invisible hand is more powerful [in advancing what is

good, author’s note] than the [un-] hidden hand… That’s the consensus

among economists” (Quoted in Chen/Hanson 2004, 12).

Even Dani Rodrik (2015, 186), critic of “hyperglobalization”, considers the “invisible hand

theorem” (which boils down to the legitimization of unconditional striving for success,

classified by economists as “rationality”) to be the “most significant achievement of the

economic sciences”. This position, this special (market-affirmative) economic ethics is marked

by economists with “the economic view”, which is placed next to other, inevitably also

normative views25

– and is of course represented suggestively with the claim of normative

“superiority”. With the authority of a science based on “expertise accumulated over centuries”

(critically Ötsch 2019, 159), economic-ethical messages like the following are then proclaimed

(Mankiw 2008, emphasis added):

“Rational people” act as utility or profit maximizers (p. 6).26

Correspondingly, the

reading of the book “will make you a more astute participant in the economy” (p. ix).

Open markets, or “trade”, “can make everyone better off” (p. 9) – why just “can”?

There is a “miracle of the market” (p. 153). The “magic of markets” is that “we can each

work for our own self-interest and still produce a desirable social outcome” (Mankiw

2008, p. 14, quoting approvingly the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of

Dallas, Robert D. McTeer, Jr).

Why is this normative program of rising the market principle to the moral principle (practically-

politically via Mont Pèlerin Society, cf. Walpen 2004, Ötsch 2019, 144ff.) an ideology or even,

as Peter Ulrich (2008, 6) puts it, “the ultimate and perhaps most powerful major ideology of all

time” – apart from the often accompanying immunization strategy of claiming its own

“neutrality”?27

Why is it a wrong ethic? In the following, some brief, systematic remarks on this

are presented.

3.1 The Defense of homo economicus violates the moral principle

Ethics in the Kantian tradition is not just about a set of certain norms, but about the

clarification and establishment of a principle of practical reason, i.e. correct (just, legitimate,

responsible) practice, embracing individual actions (individual ethics) and political rules and

regulations (political ethics). Practice refers to human action in general. Ethics and practical

philosophy are synonyms.

Economic theory traditionally defines practical reason as instrumental reason or success

rationality and calls this simply “rationality” – and not, for instance, “greed” or, with regard to

profit maximization, “greed for money”, although this would be more appropriate (Brodbeck

25

For Schmidbauer (1974, 57) it is, after all, “undisputed that assessments from the so-called ‘economic point of view’ are not value-free”. 26

“Every conception of rationality has a normative significance, as it determines how people ought to act rationally”, i.e. in a justifiable manner. Cf. Ulrich 2008, 79. 27

Marcel Fratzscher (2016, 13) manages the feat of presenting “the economic perspective” on one page of his book first as a value-free perspective from which alone “causes and effects” (on whatever) would be examined, and then equate it with the normative standard of judging all social conditions that “reflect people’s free decisions” as “desirable”. The fact that the author himself does not notice the contradiction is probably above all an expression of the mono-paradigmatic tertiary socialization within the economic sciences that has been solidified for decades.



160

2002b, 59).28

“Maximizing behavior” (together with “market equilibrium and stable

preferences”) forms “the heart of the economic approach” (Becker 1976, 5). The “economic

way of thinking” rests in the “principle of means-end rationality”, i.e. systematic maximization

of given ends, as the “principle of rationality” (Cheng 2016, 5). The justification of unbridled

instrumental rationality as the true meaning of practical reason, i.e. correct action, forms the

principle of identity of mainstream economics.29

This principle is hidden in the assumption, better: the assertion, of “universal scarcity”.

Scarcity is not, as the layperson might think, a fact that is inherent in “scarce” things, but an

evaluation of facts. Without the will to increase utility, nothing at all is “scarce”, and the

universality of scarcity is only the reverse side of the absoluteness of the assumed and

confirmed constant pursuit for advantage (cf. Thielemann 1996, 109, 117ff.).

In the older variant of the justification of unconditional striving for success (“utility

maximization”) as the principle of practical reason, the human capital theory, homo

oeconomicus serves as the model for interpreting the social world. Gary S. Becker theory is

the meticulously pursued attempt to reinterpret all human action as an expression of utility

maximization and human life as a sequence of investment and disinvestment decisions in

one’s own “human capital” (cf. Bröckling 2016, 48 ff.). The message to the audience is, if

everyone acts like this, then it must be right. In the newer variant, behavioral economics,

homo oeconomicus moves away from the object of the theory (“the empirical”) towards the

addressee. This brings the theory of rationality to itself. For it makes little sense to raise the

rationality of success, or utility maximization, to the level of practical reason, if all people were

already “rational”. This would make the self-ascribed role of economists as “proselytizers”

(Mankiw) towards practical reason as instrumental rationality obsolete (cf. Graupe 2012, 62).

“If people were as rational as economists assume, students need not be

taught economics” (McKenzie 2010, xiv).

Seen in this light, Becker’s program, which is also found in the economic textbooks, is part of

the edifying literature that anticipates, supports, and initiates the educational achievement that

the competitive market is carrying out anyhow (see Section 3.3). This is the performativity of

this program.

Behavioral economics has set out to overcome the hitherto empirically advocated theory of

rationality by empirically rejecting it. However, it does not want to overcome the equation of

rationality (practical reason) with instrumental rationality. Its real thrust is to “identify untapped

potential for improvement in companies, markets and organizations” based “on empirical

knowledge of the human tendency to make faulty decisions”.30

Of course, “improvement” and

“correct decisions” here is defined in terms of instrumental rationality. The fact that some do

not act “rationally” now becomes the starting point, and the opportunity, for profitable advice

to the addressee of the theory as homines oeconomici or customers, namely to control the

behavior of those who cannot or not want to act as cunning as these customers do, e.g. by

28

Greed here is not, as is often the case, equated with short-sightedness, i.e. with the inability to reach the highest possible success. 29

Unbridled not in the sense of ignoring constraints, of course, but in the sense of disregarding all considerations other than success. 30

This is the self-description of the consulting firm FehrAdvice & Partners from the year 2012, see Thielemann 2012a.



161

so-called nudging or by savvy framing strategies.31

That is why this approach is called

behavioral economics. It does not, as is often assumed, stand for a break with the dominant

neoclassical paradigm or even a paradigm shift, but for its continuity (see also Mirowski 2013,

262).

The normative bindingness of “rationality” as rationality of success (instrumental rationality) is

not at all called into question by this, but rather assumed without any discussion. It is always

allowed and right to follow one’s own interests and to increase one’s utility (privately defined),

otherwise one’s own actions are considered “faulty”. Ferraro/Pfeffer/Sutton (2005, 14) point to

the performative power of this theory of rationality:

“People may believe they ought to behave in a self-interested way or risk

appearing foolish, gullible, or naïve.”

The elevation of rationality of success to the principle of practical reason violates the

categorical imperative (the moral principle) directly, in particular the prohibition of reification,

formulated by Kant as the categorical imperative (cf. Thielemann 2010, 64ff.). Homo

oeconomicus is, by definition, only interested in the impact characteristics of his interaction

partners, their ability to pay and to deliver, not in the justifiability of his actions towards them.

He acts “without regard for the reasons people have” (Anderson 1990, 183). Not only

materially, in situ, this attitude is not justifiable (justifications are beyond the mindscape of

homo oeconomicus), but also theoretically. The justification of homo oeconomicus as the right

logic of action that is universally binding for us must also have to apply to the subject of the

theory itself.32

Therefore, this justification is subject to a performative contradiction (Apel

1998a): Performatively, it must, as all theories and all statements as validity claims in general,

presuppose a different rationality than the rationality of success as ultimately decisive:

discourse rationality (Thielemann 2001, 172f.).

3.2 The concealment of the losers in the process of “creative destruction”

At the latest since Joseph Alois Schumpeter’s “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy” (first

edition 1942) we have known that the market, as a process of “dynamic”, i.e. change-

generating competition, is one of “creative destruction” (Schumpeter 1943, 81ff.). “Creation”

and “destruction” are simply two sides of the same coin, so that one could also speak of

“destructive creation” (Altvater 2006).33

In short, competition creates winners and losers. “No

pain, no gain.” (Rodrik 2011, 57) It is not possible to increase somebody’s income (regularly

through more advantageous offers to others, this is the “creative”, the “win-win” side) without

reducing that of others. The additional demand corresponds to expenses that the buyers must

have diverted away from their previous uses.

31

The German law professor Rolf Stürner (2007, 420) also sees it this way: Behavioral economics makes certain “parameters of the human condition”, which are classified as “irrational”, “subject to a theory of economic decision-making in order to subordinate them to efficiency considerations in the sense of an improved ‘rational choice’.” 32

Indeed, Kirchgässner (1996, 35) explicitly states: “Scientists, like all other people, are rationally self-interested individuals. The author of this article makes no exception.” 33

However, Altvater does not show how competition accomplishes its “destructive” work. On the whole, see Thielemann 2010, 160ff., 329ff.



162

“Each new article, entirely or for the most part, creates its sale by the

withdrawal of the public [the buyer’s money] from the use of other articles”

(Mises, 1940, 263).34

It is on this pressure – the pressure of the losers to be more “productive” and ultimately: to

produce more – that economic growth is based and, in a historical perspective, the general

level of prosperity we have achieved (see affirmative McKenzie 1988, 9f., critical Thielemann

2010, 357ff.). There is no growth without pain (Thielemann 2013).

In standard economics, as well as in the broader political debate, however, the losers of

competition are overlooked or systematically ignored. At best, they only come into play in

international competition (see, for example, Peukert 2018b, 61, 84, 89). And then not as a

central message, but as a deviation from the principle that “free trade” and “open markets”

benefit everyone. Any deviation from this tenet is only addressed beyond Econ 101 (see

Rodrik 2011, 61ff.). And even then the “losers” are usually only regarded as those who gain

less than others, since the “sum total” must have increased, but “the benefits of globalization”

may be “distributed highly unevenly” (Stiglitz/Walsh 2005, 432ff.), in which then the actual

justice problem is seen (Sen 1987, 34f.). The “beneficial” effect of the competition regime, or

rather the “invisible hand” with its wisdom, metaphysically ascribed to it, is also attempted to

be justified with the First Theorem of Welfare Economics (cf. Mas-Colell/Whinston/Green

1995, 549):

“An equilibrium allocation achieved by a set of competitive markets will

necessarily be Pareto efficient” (Varian 2010, 597f.).

This is actually “reassuring to know”, because allegedly nobody loses in competition, but at

least one of the market participants wins. Apart from that, the existence of some Pareto

inefficiency state of affairs would also contain a “logical contradiction” (Varian 2010, 597),

because, according to Varian (2010, 18), then “there would be some trade that would make

two people better off without hurting anyone else”. But this must have, in the “rational” world

we live in, happened before! For a tiny moment and for the sake of this argument Varian turns

into an Austrian economist and not only “logically” presupposes the existence of ultimately

clever homines oeconomici but also (“illogically”, so to speak) assumes the existence of some

less clever market participants, so that the particularly clever homines oeconomici have the

opportunity to exploit hitherto disregarded opportunities to their own advantage. Then, before

the appearance of the particularly clever homines oeconomici, there is the possibility that the

factual supply quantity is “less than the competitive amount”. But if so, there must be some

supplier, i.e. one of the particularly clever homines oeconomici, “who is willing to supply an

extra unit of the good at a price that is less than the price someone [a potential buyer of that

good] is willing to pay for an extra unit of the good”. Thus, “there will be at least two people

who could be made better off” (Varian 2010, 310f.).

But where does the money come from this buyer needs to employ in order to pay for this

“extra unit”? The answer that von Mises gives is that she must have diverted the necessary

purchasing power away from other usages, i.e., from other suppliers. And these sellers, from

whom she now no longer buys, are the losers of this game. They are the less competitive

competitors of the supplier of this “extra unit”. The win-win for some, the seller and the buyer

34

With the qualification “for the most part” Mises obviously refers to the logically only remaining possibility of dehoarding.



163

of the “extra unit”, necessarily goes hand in hand with the loss of at least one other supplier.35

How is it possible that these relations remain largely unaddressed in economic theory or (see

the allegedly irrefutable welfare theorems) are misrepresented?

Of course, if one does not merely record the static result of competition and thus define away

its essence (cf. Hayek 1948, 92), competition violates the Pareto principle,36

at least in its

simple version.37

Obviously the blunt exposition of the so to speak “dirty secret” of the

“perennial gale” (Schumpeter 1943, 84) of “destruction”– not only of income positions, but

also of ways of life – inherent to the evolvement of market logic precisely through the

“creative” achievements of other, particularly market-inclined actors, would be highly

detrimental to the legitimization of the unrestrained unfolding of the competitive process. And

so established standard economists can, without having to fear opposition, falsely, or at least

obscurely, assert: “The removal of trade barriers increases trade and thus boosts income and

welfare” (Sachverständigenrat 2014, 40).

In Stephan Schulmeister‘s most recent Keynesian-influenced neoliberalism-critical work, “Der

Weg zur Prosperität [The path to prosperity]” (2018), a kind of summa of his oeuvre,

competition is largely anathema. It is, however, the tacitly assumed constant that silently

accompanies the line of the argument. All would be well if capital would act as a “servant of

the real economy” and actually invest in means of production (tangible assets) instead of

wasting the surpluses in speculative transactions (which works like hoarding), since then the

eo ipso competitively generated unemployment would be immediately eliminated or would not

arise at all (see Schulmeister 2018, 58, 89f., 125, 133, 206).38

The fact that unemployment

arises precisely because capital invests “in real terms” (on the primary market) in particularly

competitive (or profitable) companies and thus employees and thereby jeopardizes the

income position of others (cf. Thielemann 2012b) is neglected.

3.3 The loss of freedom through the evolvement of “free” markets

The vote of neoliberalism “for more competition and freer markets” (Sachverständigenrat

2014, 162) cannot be set forth positively, rather, it is an expression of a certain ethics. This is

basically legitimate.39

But neoliberalism, as a justification theory for the unfolding of “free”

35

Of course, competition, on a basic level, does not, as commonly assumed, take place between “companies” – who is that? – but ultimately between employees, “workers”, “laborers”, people striving for incomes. 36

See also Komlos (2019, 196): “Innovation is never ‘Pareto efficient’.” 37

In a more sophisticated (more cynical) variant of the Pareto criterion, the losses incurred by competition, whose causality usually cannot be personally assigned, form the (quasi-natural) initial position from which alone Pareto improvements can then be measured. Of course, this is inadmissible, but it should correspond to the standard interpretation. Cf. Thielemann 2014, 329f. From the compulsion to invest (ultimately: in one’s own “human capital”), the compulsion is distracted, and the only thing that should remain in consciousness is the return of investment, i.e. the advantage that everyone “can” achieve “on their own responsibility”. 38

Schulmeister should actually have no objections to the neoliberalism defining dogma that “entrepreneurial capital [and not speculative capital, author’s note.] is to be courted” (Sinn 2005). What remains unclear then, however, is why he pleads, even beyond the fight against the evil of financialization, for comprehensive systems of social security (see Schulmeister 2018, 58, 268, 275 ff., 337 ff.). 39

But then the established monism, which becomes dogmatism at the latest when the ethical-normative character of the discipline becomes apparent, is particularly disturbing. Unfortunately, its overcoming from within the discipline is not to be expected at present. The overcoming of monism from the outside, i.e., through science policy, is fought by the established economists by denying the excluded outsiders the freedom of science. The established, who are able to perpetuate their freedom of science by cooptation, claim it exclusively for themselves. The economist Isabel Schnabel, at that time member of



164

markets, by equating freedom with market freedom (to buy and sell whatever), totalizes one

dimension of freedom, without honestly addressing the conflicts to other dimensions of

freedom. This dishonesty is aggravating especially because these losses of freedom result

precisely from the unfolding of that market freedom, namely from competition.

This applies on the one hand to the loss of personal freedom, which Max Weber (1930, 54f.,

180ff.) already addressed in his study on Protestantism and capitalism. It is the loss of

freedom to lead a life that is not fully geared to personal competitiveness, that is not a

sequence of human-capital investments, that is not market-compliant without having to fear

the threat of personal economic plunge. This can also be found in almost brutal openness in

Hayek (1982, 75): “Competition will make it necessary for people to act rationally in order to

maintain themselves.” It is the “relatively more rational individuals” who will, “through

competition, …make it necessary for the rest to emulate them in order to prevail”, i.e., to

survive. If one rejects the concept of rationality presupposed here which equates instrumental

rationality with practical reason (rightness) it is rather difficult to derive from these insights,

which tell us “the truth about the market” (Bröckling 2016, 43ff., 55), a principle affirmation of

competition – ultimately: as a “discovery procedure” for practical reason in general.40

About

this truth the neoliberals themselves, especially Austrian economists, offer the best reference,

with just a little bit of ethical-critical interpretation needed.

Competition forces the economization of the self. It is a kind of systemic (i.e., letting

impersonal forces reign) educational facility. Not we ourselves autonomously, but competition

heteronomously determines the educational content. In the competitive process, the

compulsion to lead an entrepreneur life is inscribed (Thielemann 2010, 329ff.). Life becomes

an ongoing investment in your own “human capital”. There is a “pressure to permanently self-

mobilize” (Bröckling 2016, 58). It is too risky not to give in to this compulsion as early as

possible.41

Since competition proceeds as an “everpresent threat”, it already “disciplines

before it attacks” (Schumpeter 1943, 85). A risk minimization strategy is, for example, to

embark upon the path of studying economics, thus becoming “a more astute participant in the

economy” (Mankiw) – in order to, if needed, stand on the side of the ones who lay off instead

of standing on the side of the ones who are laid off. We are captives of (global) competition,

which we, on the other hand, at the same time always boost, some more, some less.

The compulsion of competition is only lastingly effective because it is not exercised by

identifiable others, but works as a systemic process and thus runs without instance, which is

why Max Weber (1968, 1186) described it as a “masterless slavery”. Responsibility for

economic hardship, which one suffers without reducing one’s work effort, is thus transformed

into “personal responsibility”. “No job? It‘s your own fault!” (Berg 1997) The “invisible hand of

the market” does exist indeed, but the term “hiding hand of the market” is more appropriate

(Bhagwati 1996, 33). The assertion that it works for the well-being of all is a moral judgement

that is to be discussed politically time and again, otherwise bare ideology.

the German Council of Economic Experts, sees a quota for dissenting positions as nothing more than a “fundamental intervention in the freedom of science” (Plickert 2018) – in her own and her like-minded colleagues’ freedom. 40

This comes down to a transcendental theory of competition, cf. Thielemann 2010, 311ff. 41

This is the systematic reason why Keynes’ prophecy of a general individual reduction of working hours with increasing prosperity did not come true – and not, at least not systematically, a widespread tendency to conspicuous consumption, as Skidelsky/Skidelsky (2013, 17f., 273ff.) contend. As long as the regime of competition reigns, the “course of affairs” will not “simply be that there will be ever larger and larger classes and groups of people from whom problems of economic necessity have been practically removed”, as Keynes (1963, 372) thought. The Keynesians do not grasp competition.



165

For this, however, the body politic would need to be sovereign. However, this is at least

questionable, and not only since German chancellor Angela Merkel officially proclaimed the

“market-compliant democracy” in 2011 (Streeck 2014, 44f). As early as 1997, Herbert

Giersch, a veteran of German neoliberalism, proclaimed the “end of an economic policy that

seeks to counteract market forces.” There is much to suggest that a policy that refuses to

“court entrepreneurial capital” (Hans-Werner Sinn) and to “transform the nation-state into the

neoliberal ‘competition state’ dominated by international capital interests” (Deutschmann

2015, 547) is likely to end up roughly where Greece currently finds itself.42

The result is a

technocratic “hollowing of democracy” (Heitmeyer 2018) and a regime for which Colin Crouch

(2004) coined the term “post-democracy”.

Part of the “economic” ethics or ideology of the mainstream is that it presupposes this loss of

political freedom at least as a factual condition for its (anyway never value-free)

recommendations or even (like Giersch) openly applauds the “market obedience” (critically

Brodbeck 2009) in which the authority that could principally tame the market dynamics

exercises itself. This taming would consist either in a global redistribution and regulation

regime with otherwise still “open markets” or in “protectionist” initiatives to limit the unfolding

of the market logic through global competitive non-aggression agreements.43

3.4 Forgoing ideology criticism

Heterodox economics is set out as a somehow critical endeavor. The broad strand of

positivist heterodoxy, however, renounces the possibility (and necessity) of an ethically

conceived ideology critique of the neoliberal mainstream economics. Positivist heterodox

economics has to accept all what the mainstream justifies, and if not, it has to be up to

another discipline, external to economics. But which one? And how would it relate to

economics, heterodox or orthodox? Possibly the proponents of a positivist heterodoxy

believe, in line with ethical skepticism (for instance critical rationalism), the question of the

redeemability of the economistic validity claim of the rule of the market principle can only be a

matter of inscrutable individual decision and not a matter of academics, i.e. rational

discussion directed at some kinds of normative “truth”, i.e. rightness (otherwise these

discussions would be pointless).44

But value freedom, at least for a social science (such as economics) that inevitably gives its

addressees clues for dealing with actors that form the subject area of that science, is an

illusion anyway.45

Contrary to its positivist claim, according to which normativity is “external to

42

See also Hirsch (1995) on the competition state thesis. Genschel/Seelkopf (2015, 247), who do not consider the thesis to be blankly wrong, but “overly general and too simple”, provide an overview of various representatives of this thesis. For empirical (in terms of anecdotal) evidence for this thesis, see Thielemann 2014, 338f. A critical examination of the view that the nation state is not subjected to impersonal pressures stemming from world or location competition can be found in Thielemann 2018. 43

Cf. on this idea Thielemann 2009, 233ff., 2010, 452, Vontobel 2018. Wade (2017, 44f.) votes for a “cooperative internationalism” that should adjust the “open international trade system” in order “to provide more ‘policy space’ for national governments and regional blocs”. Likewise, Rodrik (2018, 231f.) advocates “curtailing trade flows” that “undermine democratically legitimated domestic practices”. However, he does not want to call this “protectionism”, although it would do just that: protect democracies. 44

Value decisions are indeed no matter for an (ethical-critical) social science. However, it is a matter of value elucidation as well as transcendental critique. Cf. Thielemann 2010, 124ff. In the preceding

sections, the first one (3.1) is primarily a transcendental critique, the other two sections (3.2., 3.3.) are mainly a matter of value elucidation, especially by pointing out “forgotten” conflicts of value and of interests. 45

Cf. the programmatic title of Tanja von Egan-Krieger’s work: Die Illusion wertfreier Ökonomie (2014).



166

theory” (Peukert), heterodoxy, which presents itself as positive, is also full of normative

concepts. Economists, as all social scientists, want to show something; they have something

meaningful to say.46

4. The paradigm of market failure

It is striking that the positivist strand of heterodox economics adheres quite readily to the

normative terminology and thus to the standards of evaluation of neoclassical standard

economics (as an unacknowledged economic ethics). This applies above all to the concept of

efficiency (alternatively “optimal”) as well as to the efficiency criterion of assessing not only

market interaction relationships. In fact, “efficiency” or more precisely “efficiency

enhancement” is mostly understood in a utilitarian sense, as the growth of a fictitious total

utility or simply as GDP growth (see Thielemann 2010, 291ff.). That is always good. Political

representatives may redistribute (insofar they have a “preference” for justice), which is then

addressed as the separation of “allocation” and “distribution”. But of course they may do so

only if this does not have any “behavioral effects” that could impair “allocative efficiency” in

the end (see for evidence Peukert 2018a, 156 ff.). This is obviously an impossible idea, since

employees should naturally feel the pressure of the markets. What “makes the prospect of

unemployment less painful” (Blanchard 2017, 170) is to be avoided.47

This utilitarian

understanding is generally referred to as “Pareto efficiency” (claiming that nobody loses),

because the losers of competition are forgotten or concealed – or because, and this is the

more sophisticated variant of the Pareto principle, the losers themselves have to make sure to

side themselves on the winning side by making the appropriate “entrepreneurial” efforts.

The undisputed acceptance of the normative evaluation standards of traditional economic

theory is also reflected in the way standard heterodox or dissenting economists reject the

“market fundamentalism” of “orthodox economics”. According to Stiglitz (2002), this

fundamentalism consists solely in the false assumption of orthodox economics that “markets

are generally efficient”, whereas behavioral economics is said to have empirically proven the

factual “irrationality of market participants” in laboratory experiments. Thus, if they really acted

“rationally”, i.e., if they did everything that could be done in order to exploit the world to their

own ultimate advantage (and if possibly other assumptions were fulfilled), then the invisible

hand theorem according to which “free markets lead to efficiency” (Stiglitz) and even more:

serve the just good of all, or the “public interest” (Adam Smith), would apply empirically and

46

Helge Peukert's (2018a, 43ff.) characterization of the “counterpoints” that set the manifold heterodox strands of economic theory apart from the mainstream is practically throughout normative; they are not formulated as a set of hypotheses that contradict neoclassical orthodoxy. This might not be noticeable, since these “counterpoints” are mostly formulated in the indicative as if they were components of a positive theory. For example, when Peukert writes that “there are also non-material needs that must be taken into account as serious target values in economics” (p. 46), the question arises: for what? For a better “explanation” of price movements? Or for “analyses and conclusions” committed to “the truth” that are “based” on “values” and “influenced” by them (p. 50), but are not themselves of a normative nature? Peukert needs to think along these lines if he wants to hold on to the notion of the externality of normativity for any truly academic paradigm of economics. But if so, he fails to do justice to the ethical-critical impulse of the heterodox project – including his own. 47

Wilhelm Heitmeyer (2018, 35) quotes a business journalist who notes: “If workers never fear losing their jobs, there's little reason to restrain wages. Some uncertainty, anxiety and fear are essential.” The recent discussion about a trade-off between inequality and growth (IMF 2017) does little to change this view, because “efficiency” continues to be taken as the measure. This discussion “no longer focuses on the problems the poor have with market outcomes, but on the problems the poor cause for economic growth” (Kaufmann 2014).



167

thus would be true. – Of course this is not an assertion that could be formulated on purely

“positive”, value-free grounds.

Standard economics claims (here in the words of Varian, quoted by Peukert 2018a, 161) that

“profits are exactly the right guide” to achieve the (alleged) “social goal” of increasing

“efficiency”. (That is what Hayek (1982, 67ff.) called “Competition as discovery procedure”.)

This, however, Peukert objects, “is only valid if all the many assumptions do actually apply”.

Really?

This is where an interesting – or, seen from a non-economistic viewpoint: perplexing – dispute

is sparked between economists who have rather narrow or rather broad views on whether

empirical markets “fail” or not – for example between “freshwater” and “saltwater” economists

(Paul Krugman).48

This dispute is perplexing because of the nonchalance with which both

sides acknowledge the particular “economic” ethics and, as the young economists Earle,

Morgan and Ward-Perkins (2017, 81f.) aptly point out, both presuppose “the perfect market

as the norm”. It seems, the heterodox critics of real markets in terms of their “failing” want to

demonstrate with the adherence to this ethics their membership in the circle of economists,

which underlines the dominance of economism as the “most powerful ideology” (Peter Ulrich)

of our time. “The power of the [neoliberal] meta script” seems to be so pervasive that “even

‘progressives’” believe they will only be heard if they “frame their arguments… in terms of

failed markets” (Chen, Hanson 2004, 17). Then, however, it is doubtful, if their arguments are

the same, or if they are twisted, i.e. economized.

Of course, the notion of “market failure” could, in principle, be understood quite differently. In

its established use, however, it means that the empirically given market “fails” according to

the ethical characteristics that economics has traditionally attributed to the ideal, true market.

“Market failure” is, so to speak, the imperfection with which the market principle is actually

effective. For whatever reason.

What follows from this is not clear. In general, it could be said that a policy to prevent market

failures would be “to make markets act like true markets” (Stiglitz 2015, 119). But what would

this mean? Possibly what critical sociologists call “authoritarian capitalism” (Heitmeyer 2018,

34, 118ff.). For if the market participants (and of course we are all market participants) refuse

to obey to the logic of the market, then from the perspective of neoliberalism political

“interventions in the direction of market laws are needed to accelerate their natural [or factual]

course” (Rüstow 1963, 252f.). Naomi Klein (2008) has meticulously demonstrated what this

means in concrete terms at the global level, namely a “shock strategy” against established

systems of market regulation and social security.

This can also be understood as “planning for the market” (Thomasberger 2009), i.e. as a

policy of suppression and disempowerment of all market-adverse societal forces aimed at

limiting the progressively deeper and broader rule of the market principle through regulation

and social security systems. This aspiration by the advocates of the rule of the market

principle also explains their notorious opposition to democracy.49

This results fundamentally

48

For the extensive variant, which sees “market failures” everywhere, see for example Forder 2016, 77ff., Komlos 2019 (without using the notion very often), as well as Naidu/Rodrik/Zucman (2019); Stiglitz (2020, 323) concedes that, without using the term that often, his whole book (People, Power, and Profits) actually is about market failures; for the narrow variant see for example, Streit (2006, 94), who suspects behind the theory of market failure above all nirvana-economics, i.e. illusions. 49

Cf. for numerous references Ötsch 2019, 127f., 151, 198, 231; Slobodian 2019, 249ff., 357ff.



168

from the fact that democracy is at best superfluous from a neoliberal point of view, since it is

already clear how society as a whole is to be ordered: as a market or in such a way that the

market in its present form does not “fail”. Instead of a “phony capitalism” (Stiglitz 2015, 119,

164ff.) the true, pure market should prevail.

Though this neoliberal course of installing the “true market” by politically removing all market-

adverse elements from the current state of how markets proceed may be internally consistent

from the point of view of the paradigm of market failure, heterodox economists (if one does

not include the Austrians or Ordoliberalism) usually have something different, even the

opposite, in mind. The fact that real markets are “rife with market failure” and full of “market

imperfections” is, in their view, the empirical proof that “neoliberalism – or market

fundamentalism, market fetishism, etc. – is a perversion of mainstream economics”

(Naidu/Rodrik/Zucman 2019, 5, 2) and that the market regime should not reign supreme.50

Obviously, the complete enthronement of the market regime is assumed to be an unattainable

ideal. Based on this, an “empirical turn” (Steinbaum 2019) is sufficient to demonstrate the

need for a departure from “free-market oriented policies” (Naidu/Rodrik/Zucman 2019, 5).

“Systematic empirical evidence is a disciplining device against ideological

policy prescriptions embedded in preconceived theorizing. The empirical bent

of economics makes it more difficult to ignore inconvenient facts, when real

world markets do not behave like textbook ones” (Naidu/Rodrik/Zucman

2019, 3).

It seems, the general reason why heterodoxy calls itself “real-world economics” is a positivist

one. Whoever gathers behind the approach of “real-world economics” would then signal that

the entire market-affirmative normativity of orthodoxy is to be acknowledged and only the

empirical conditions of its actual fulfillment are to be called into question. The alternative view

would be that “real-world economics” focus on another interpretation and evaluation of the

market interaction relations, a normatively more appropriate and in this respect more

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